The Order of the Basillisk
by James Jago
Summary: Harry and friends have the chance to change the course of history. Will they succeed? Will Snape get to punch James Potter?
1. A Crisis At Privet Drive

All the usual disclaimers apply. Thanks to Amber39 and KaiserMonkey for their appreciative reviews of the first part.  
  
If you haven't read my previous work in this category (shame on you if you haven't) I'll give you a brief resume. Lucius Malfoy's somewhat more enlightened brother Alexis leaves the family seat under acrimonious circumstances, marrys his normal-born girlfriend, and teaches his two children their magical skills at home. However, in their sixth year the Ministry finds out and puts a stop to this, packing them off to Hogwarts.  
  
The slightly older of the two children, Richard Malone, is our dry-humoured and slightly cynical narrator. By the Christmas holidays he has defused his rivalry with cousin Draco, become a Beater for Gryffindor, and been an amused observer as his sister successfully wooes Hermione Grainger. Vernon Dursley also suffers a brain haemorrage when it is revealed that Alex Malone is in fact a wizard.  
  
We resume our tale half a school year after 'Friends and Enemies...', just into the summer holidays. Harry is now a semi-permanent member of the Malone household, and incidentally is also attending the same kickboxing class as Rick. Dudley hasn't dared try anything on that front. Vernon is gradually recovering from his stroke, and remains his usual pleasant self. Ditto Petunia. Draco is about to get his first taste of what being a Death Eater will mean...  
  
Draco stared at his father, horror-struck. "Well, get on with it, boy!" Lucius ordered. "You know how to use the Cruciacus, don't you?" The other, fully initiated Death Eaters glared behind their masks. They hadn't been at all pleased with Lucius when he'd insisted upon bringing his son along, 'to see if he's got what it takes BEFORE we go through all that rigmarole with the Dark Mark.' Having him bottle out on a real job would have been inconvenient, but so was looking out for a semi-incompetent teenager. Fortunately this mission wasn't especially complicated, though it was of considerable importance.  
  
The family cowered behind the father, an unimpressive man who could only walk on crutches. His wife merely made pathetic noises.  
  
"Look," he said in a reasonable tone which obviously didn't come naturally, "how about I tell you where you can find the boy, and then you don't have to horribly torture us all to death. Is that a mutually acceptable arrangement?"  
  
"Except for the fact that I happen to like horribly torturing people to death, of course," Lucius replied conversationally. "Especially Muggles."  
  
"Then why make the kid do it?" enquired the youngest of the family, an excessively fat kid with ridiculously styled blonde hair. "I mean, I can identify with you about the appeal of torturing people, so why not have all the fun yourself? He doesn't look too fussed, you see."  
  
Lucius was more than somewhat impressed; the lad was perceptive enough to realise that he was going to die anyway, and was displaying unexpected reserves of courage. He felt that at the very least he might as well give him an honest answer.  
  
"It's a sort of rite of passage," he explained. "I wanted to find out..."  
  
"...If I'd got the bollocks," Draco finished. His father rolled his eyes.  
  
"I was going to use a somewhat less vulgar expression, but that's a fair summation." His tone became impatient. "Well, HAVE you got them, boy? Get on with it!"  
  
Draco raised his wand, trying not to look as hesitant as he felt. "Don't worry lad, it's never easy the first time," one of the others said helpfully. //Oh well, here goes, even if it means I don't have a chance in hell with Ginny now...//  
  
Ginny's face came back to him, sweet, innocent... He could hear her, the last thing she said to him: "If you have to join the Dark side, do it as a choice YOU made. Don't do it just because your father tells you to." //OK Ginny, I won't, God help me!//  
  
Draco whirled around. "Stupefy!" he yelled, sending the others flying.  
  
"Draco, what the bloody hell are you- Ack!" Lucius caught the man's crutch alongside his head, sending him flying against the wall with a sickening crunch.  
  
Draco turned and ran, muttering "Idiot, idiot, IDIOT!" to himself. Why have an attack of conscience NOW? He was very probably going to die, and in an unpleasant fashion. The Boss was not going to be best pleased when he heard about this. //Ginny had better be impressed after this evening's events,// he told himself.  
  
A car screeched to a stop, and several Aurors exited it at speed. One of them neatly tripped Draco, and held him at wandpoint. "Hold it, sunbeam- hey, he's just a kid!" Draco found this rather riling, but decided against making an issue of it right now.  
  
Another Auror appeared. "Five unconscious Death Eaters, three very scared people who are apparently close relatives of none other than Harry Potter, and nobody dead. Makes a nice change, really."  
  
"I'm glad they're still alive," remarked the driver of the car, a woman. "If anybody's going to kill those three, it ought to be Harry."  
  
"I heard that!" Vernon Dursley roared, waving his crutches. "If it wasn't for my hypertension I'd-" The first Auror shattered one of his garden gnomes with a burst of magical lightning, and he shut up. Draco took this opportunity to leg it, disappearing into the evening twilight before anybody could stop him.  
  
Meanwhile, a somewhat difficult conversation was taking place in the Malone household.  
  
"It's not the fact that you Apparated in my living room while we were watching the Quidditch match, triggering the burglar alarm and permanently alienating my next door neighbours, who had to listen to it for the next eight hours," Dad blandly informed a wholly unrepentant Fred and George Weasley. "It's not even the fact that you nailed all of Rick and Harry's bedroom furniture to their respective ceilings, at an estimated cost to repair of several hundred pounds. No, gentlemen," he growled, "it's the official ministry visit which I recieved asking me to explain why I permitted my kids to use magic at home now that they'd put a stop to home schooling. Do you have ANY idea how long it took me to convince them to go away?"  
  
Harry was trying not to laugh, but I was distinctly unamused. My furniture had fallen down, causing the destruction of my television and nearly braining the family cat, Mistopheles.  
  
"Look, we'll pay for the furniture and everything, and we're sorry about the mess," said Fred... or was it George?  
  
"And upsetting the people next door," the other one replied. Okay, okay. Look, even their mother gets confused sometimes.  
  
Further conversation was curtailed by the roughly simultaneous arrival, by Floo powder, of Ginny Weasley and Ms Tonks. They collided in midair and landed in a heap. Molly wouldn't have approved of her daughter's language, and I don't suppose Nymphadora's mum would have approved of HERS, either. Did I spell that right, by the way? Gave my word processor's spelling checker a headfit, I can tell you.  
  
"What the hell just happened?" I enquired mildly, as they finally disentangled themselves.  
  
"Draco was-!"  
  
"Malfoy just-!"  
  
"His father was-!"  
  
"One at a time, for Christ's sake!" Dad yelled over them both. Finally, we got the circumstances straightened out. Ginny had apparently raced here by Floo after a near-hysterical Draco had called her at home, knowing nobody else to call, and swearing blind that he'd done nothing wrong; rather the contrary according to Tonks. She hadn't been able to convince him that he was being regarded as a witness rather than an accessory, and that Vernon Dursley had even gone so far as to say 'Thank you' for his efforts. Both had expected him to turn up at our house, though what sort of reception he anticipated I've no idea.  
  
Frantic hammering on the door (he'd probably never seen an electronic doorbell) announced that we were about to find out.  
  
I opened the door, to find a dishevelled and hyperventilating Malfoy on the doorstep. "Come on in," I told him. "Ginny and Tonks just turned up, and they both say you're the hero of the hour, though doing the Crucaicus on the Dursleys seems like a worthy cause."  
  
"But I'm damned if I'm going to let anybody else do it but me!" Harry called from the kitchen. Draco shared a look with Tonks, and they both laughed. We got his version of events in detail over several cups of coffee which I absolutely did not enhance with the cheap whiskey Dad uses for making hot toddies. You know what I'm driving at, I'm sure.  
  
"I just panicked, I suppose. Aurors arrest Malfoys on sight," Draco explained.  
  
"That we do," Tonks conceeded, "on the principle that they're almost always guilty of SOMETHING. This is the first time we've tried to arrest one that's been innocent of anything, actually, Alex here included."  
  
"Being drunk and disorderly outside the Leaky Cauldron aged seventeen," Dad explained. "Are you familiar with the phrase 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone', Nypho?"  
  
"We were all seventeen at some stage," she replied. "I've been told I'm not a pretty sight when I'm drunk." There was a thoughtful pause while we contemplated the experience of getting sloshed with a Metamorphagus. Plenty of potential for amusing moments there, especially if one is in posession of a camera. I decided to have a few quiet words about that with Remus next time I saw him. He'd set off to find somewhere he could turn into a raging beast once a month without anybody taking much notice, but not in the wizarding world where people knew about werewolves. It goes without saying that he was currently renting an apartment in Manhattan. (Author's note: see 'An English Werewolf in New York', which can be accessed via my Favourite Stories in my profile. I found it in Classics and loved it so I figured I'd try and fit it into the canon.)  
  
"So, what do we do now? He can't stay here indefinitely, that's for certain. I wouldn't be surprised if the Death Eaters were watching this place," Dad explained. "Lucius always was a cautious sort."  
  
"Is he REALLY going to send a heavy mob after his own son?" asked Harry.  
  
"Count on it," Draco replied bitterly. "Father'd probably Avada Kedavara the crap out of me personally. Think of him as an older version of me, but worse."  
  
"HellFIRE!"  
  
"The Burrow," Ginny suggested. "At least for a while. Even the Dark Lord's bright enough not to try and blow up the new Minister of Magic." Arthur Weasely had taken over at Dumbledore's insistence, after Fudge had been offered honourable retirement or a vote of no confidence and the sack, to his considerable alarm and surprise. After a somewhat shaky start, he had settled in well, and made several changes that had pleased the anti-pureblood faction no end. A major shakeup of several subdepartments was in progress, several of the dafter laws had been relaxed, and the Aurors were getting a massive pay rise. So was Arthur, come to that; they'd never have to buy secondhand again as long as they lived.  
  
Molly had been well chuffed, until Arthur had Percy fired. That nearly caused divorce proceedings, until Arthur produced evidence of Percy fiddling his expenses and pinching stationery, neatly diverting the approaching matrimonial wrath to a more deserving subject.  
  
"What about this camping trip to Romania with Charlie?" Harry suggested. Ah, yes! Four weeks in the wilderness, far from civilisation or Dark Magic. Fantastic!  
  
Persuading the Granger, Brown and Chang families to allow their representatives to participate hadn't been easy, but the Lovegoods had been quite enthusiastic about the whole idea. The first time I'd encountered them I'd been thouroughly nervous... no, I tell a lie- I was bloody terrified. But they'd been a lot less judgemental than I'd expected- actually, I suspect they were secretly relieved that Luna was showing signs of being 'normal', as if she gave a damn for normality. That's a side issue, however.  
  
"Why not? Since Seamus and I had that big row we've had an extra place anyway."  
  
"Erm..." Harry began, visions of everybody else's reactions swimming before his eyes.  
  
"You have a better idea?" I cut in.  
  
At this point Mum and Fran arrived home from their day of girls-only shopping, giggling hysterically. Apparently a bunch of builders had wolf-whistled at one or both of them (don't even go there, OK?) and Fran had audibly remarked, "And you wonder why I'm gay," leaving the builders unable to frame a suitable reply. I pictured this with a certain amount of amusement.  
  
They were immediately fussing over Draco in a truly embarassing fashion, and I lent a hand in extricating him to the Burrow.  
  
"I'll handle Mum. Harry, can you sell Ron on this?" Ginny said, determination setting in. Fred and George had discreetly disapparated to a safe distance at some stage in the proceedings.  
  
"I'll have a go," he promised. "Rick, do you mind coming along to help me pull them off one another?" Or Ron off him, I supposed, nodding my assent.  
  
***  
  
"MALFOY?" Ron nearly exploded. "Oh, Merlin. That Seamus git was bad enough, but Ginny's really lost it now."  
  
"Did I even suggest any kind of romantic relationship? Not that it's your business who your sister chooses to go out with anyway," I replied, feeling my temper starting to fray.  
  
"Look," Harry interjected before Ron could completely lose it and sieze me by the throat, "if there was anywhere else we could send Draco where he wasn't going to be horribly tortured to death he'd be there. And bastard that he was for the last four years, he doesn't deserve the Cruciacus curse."  
  
"What about Grimmauld Place?" You could tell from Ron's face that he didn't entirely agree with Harry on that last point.  
  
"That safehouse was burned after all that business at the Ministry. Besides, would you make even Draco Malfoy share a house with Sirius Black's mother?" I pointed out.  
  
"I had to for a couple of days," Draco remarked, passing Ron's room. "Father bought the place not long after all that stuff at the Ministry. Why, I can't imagine, though I suppose it'd be something to do with not wanting the seat of a respected pureblood family to go to ruin. That's the kind of crap he generally comes up with."  
  
Ginny followed. "Get used to him, Ron. He's coming with us to Romania, like it or not, and you're to make an effort to get along with him. Otherwise you will be dealing with me."  
  
"God, she's like her mother sometimes," I said ruefully, shaking my head. "Come on, let's go and have a drink." 


	2. Off On Holiday

Author's note: On the matter of caffiene as a writing aid, I have found the ideal beverage to aid me in my literary endeavours. It consists of one ordinary coffee with two sugars, a spoonful of hot chocolate powder, and a small quantity of Famous Grouse or similar whiskey. Perhaps I ought to try and sell it to Starbucks.  
  
By the way, does anybody see why Godric's Hollow shouldn't be in Great Houghton, or that I shouldn't make Harry's parents my girlfriend's next door neighbours?  
  
I didn't see Draco for several days after that, until we were at Stanstead waiting for our flight in fact. Fran and I were dropped off just after Hermione, which seemed in keeping with her personality as well as the fact that she lived a few miles away.  
  
"I won't say 'don't do anything I wouldn't do because that would limit your options a bit, but try not to do anything illegal, dangerous or both," Hermione's mum said by way of a goodbye.  
  
"You wouldn't even know how to do most of the things I do on a regular basis, Mum!" Hermione laughed. "You're a fortysomething heterosexual dentist. I'm a seventeen-year old student witch, and a lesbian! Have a good time in Germany with Auntie Harriet."  
  
Luna was next, throwing herself into my arms with an overjoyed shout. I hugged her as hard as I could, kissing her passionately and pointedly ignoring the look Dad gave me. Cho, Lavender and the Weasleys arrived next, with Draco accompanying them. He was wearing a WEASLEY SWEATER, I kid you not, a blue one with a huge Gothic letter D on the front. We had all wound up with these things at Christmas, so a photo moment with them on had an air of inevitability about it. Ron seemed less bothered than I'd expected, actually.  
  
"There are no Slytherins looking, now," Draco explained over a preflight coffee. "I don't have to pretend to be a git."  
  
"We could make him an honourary Ravenclaw," Luna offered helpfully, ignoring the Gryffindor majority. She and Fran started bickering, then lobbing UHT milk tubs at each other, with Cho soon to join in on Luna's side.  
  
"Are we going to have to put up with this kind of thing the whole time?" Harry enquired despairingly.  
  
"Oh, we ain't seen nothing yet!" I predicted, watching them finally come to blows. Cho showed a certain amount of restraint, more so than she had with Harry and me one time over the holidays when she demonstrated her considerable martial arts skills in the back garden. I couldn't walk properly afterwards, and Harry had a black eye.  
  
"Hey, that's our flight!" We hastily finished our coffees, grabbed our luggage, and ran for the check-in desk. There we discovered that it had merely been a first announcement rather than a last call, so we were first aboard.  
  
It was a depressing flight, actually. I was stuck next to a noisily snoring man in a cheap suit, and the movie was The Dukes Of Hazzard Go To Hollywood, which I'd seen a dozen times before. Make of that what you will. At least I didn't get puked on by a little kid in the row behind like Draco did, to my great amusement and his considerable annoyance.  
  
We disembarked with some relief, and got our first look at Budapest. Ex-Soviet architecture was much in evidence, as well as a general atmosphere of jerrybuilding that hadn't been looked after all that well; maintainence costs money, and overall it's frequently more cost-effective to let it fall down and build it again properly. You hear the same story all over Eastern Europe.  
  
Charlie was waiting outside, in a minibus which looked like he'd got it from the local scrapyard. The hire firm probably had; I can't imagine rental cars being a growth industry in a country still recovering from half a century of Soviet occupation. We scrambled aboard, with a flurry of hellos, and hastily put on our seatbelts; there were terrible stories about Charlie's driving to be had from Molly, who'd once -and only once- allowed him to borrow Arthur's. He's got another one, now, complete with magical optional extras- the difference is, this time it's a Corvette. Being made minister put a couple of extra zeroes on his pay cheque, so why not?  
  
I nearly suffered heart failure when a small black dragon crawled out from beneath my seat, and began raping the one printed on Cho's t-shirt. She called him -she could tell it was male, for reasons I won't go into detail about if you don't mind- something very rude in Chinese. She's a good person to watch Firefly with, by the way.  
  
"Like my anti-theft device?" Charlie said, grinning. We all exchanged looks, recalling the film on the plane. Presumably Charlie had seen Hazzards in Hollywood too, though this beat Rosco's sackful of rattlesnakes in his RV all hollow.  
  
"Hello, Norbert," said Hermione, totally unfazed. Well if she can control that damn great cat of hers, which we had unanimously voted to place in a cattery for the duration, a dragon ought to be a picnic. We adopted one of the kittens after he impregnated Mrs Norris, by the way; Filch kept the rest, which has made him unbend a bit.  
  
Charlie drove us to a small clearing on the reservation, which had been loaned to us as a campsite. It was quiet and fairly secluded, but we weren't too far from a bus stop and from there it was only a short distance from town.  
  
"Have fun setting up the tents, you lot!" And off he went in a cloud of uncombusted diesel and carbon monoxide, leaving us to it.  
  
We got the tents up. God, how can one short sentence encapsulate so much strife? It took us nearly three hours, and everybody's tempers were fraying by the time we had them up. We arranged all seven in a rough circle around a small campfire, and divided our baggage between two of them. The original plan had involved Ginny and Seamus (I think; Ginny's the most indecisive girl I ever met in some areas) sharing and one tent exclusively for storage, but she wasn't on tent-sharing terms with Draco. Yet. So, after some arguing, we decided to put them in one of the tents each with half of our stuff. Draco looked secretly disappointed, and in fact so did Ginny, but I think we were all privately convinced they would end the holiday in the same tent.  
  
By the time all of the initial hassle was sorted, it was early evening; time for a beer or five. This is the only excuse for Fran and Hermione performing an impromptu kareoke duet to 'Not Gonna Get Us' by tATu when it came on local radio, or for the applause it recieved. It seemed terribly amusing at the time when I looked into the digital camrecorder placed so that the evening could be recorded for posterity, and said "Please forgive us for this poncing about, we're all completely pissed," in a very slurred voice. None of our parents thought it amusing AT ALL.  
  
Several hours later we staggered to our tents and flopped into bed, with the curious exception of Draco and Ginny, who hadn't been seen for a while. For some sleep followed, but for others...  
  
"God," I muttered to myself, as Fran and Hermione achieved orgasm for the eighth time in an hour, "will they ever stop?"  
  
"You're just jealous," Luna giggled. "Just because YOU couldn't keep going that long."  
  
"Not after seven lagers, I couldn't," I admitted. "How do they do it?"  
  
"Best not to ask, I reckon."  
  
The noises changed to screams and curses, most of them directed at whoever had just undone the guy ropes and brought the tent down. "Thanks, Draco!" the rest of the camp chorused.  
  
"How did you know it was me?"  
  
The next morning presented us with two tasks. The first was moving all the stuff from Ginny's tent into the one formerly occupied (in a theoretical way) by Draco. The second was counter-cursing the Body Bind Ginny had put on Ron (Romanian law allows the use of magic by students at any time, subject to normal rules regarding concealment) after he saw her, and I quote, 'snogging a Slytherin.' He'd actually mellowed a bit towards Draco when he prevented Ginny from following the curse up with a good kick in the bollocks, albeit largely because she'd only hurt herself. And she wonders why everybody says she takes after her mother!  
  
The third and most interesting task, though the one with the greatest potential for personal injury, was dealing with Fran and Hermione.  
  
"Right, you two, here's the deal. I'll help you get out of there, but on two conditions. One: no more noisy bonking after, say, eleven PM. Two: you make no attempt to inflict any harm on Draco or anybody else as a direct or indirect consequence of spending all night tied together in extremely painful positions." Insert your own joke here. "Do we have a deal?"  
  
"Yes, we promise, just get us OUT OF HERE!"  
  
I wisely decided to give my broom a quick test ride just before they escaped. I hastily put on the bright yellow Lycra suit which had seemed most appropriate for the purpose of broom-racing, and strapped myself into the intricate restraint harness which I had recently attached to remedy a tendency to be thrown clear during high-G manoevres or periods of acceleration.  
  
"You look like a complete and utter pillock," Luna informed me.  
  
"I'm quite aware of that, dearest one," I replied evenly, "but at the speeds I plan on going nobody will notice."  
  
"He's going to die," I heard Fran remark matter-of-factly, but I chose to ignore this. I calculated that we were at the furthest edge of the reservation, giving me a twenty mile run before I had to turn around. Hermione put a Disillusionment Charm on me, and the effect was like the ludicrous cloaking device in James Bond's car in Die Another Day. I waved my thanks, aware that this was a pointless gesture, and set off at full throttle. (Author's note: I was listening to 'I Believe I Can Fly as reworked by Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies when I wrote this bit!)  
  
The small airspeed measuring device strapped to the stick was borrowed from my mother's godson, who worked in an aerodynamics research lab. It posessed a data-logging feature, which printed the results on a small sheet of paper so the others would believe me when I told them how fast I went. I lowered my skiing goggles and crouched as low as I could to reduce drag, trying not to notice the creaking of the restraints. If they went at this speed, and over a forest, I'd be killed instantly if I fell off. They'd have to bury me in a jam jar if that happened, I mused, unconsciously beginning to hum the Battle Hymn of the Republic; the version the French definitely DON'T sing. I'm sure you know the lyrics.  
  
I skimmed the lake that marked the reservation's border, making an impressive ripple effect as I zipped over the water, then pulled back. Looping the loop at that sort of speed is a mistake, which one makes only once, and in my case it was very nearly a fatal one. I wasn't pulling QUITE enough Gs for a blackout or red-out, but the restraints might easily have given up and sent me falling eighty feet into the lake below. It was certainly a bit hair-raising.  
  
I made a shaky landing, and Hermione helpfully Reillusioned me. "You're a bloody lunatic!" she exclaimed, somewhere between apoplexy and hero-worship. She looked at the strip of paper hanging from the speed counter.  
  
"A hundred and thirty seven miles an hour... I don't BELIEVE it!"  
  
"A hundred thirty-seven? WAHOOO!" Harry, Ron and Draco all but carried me on their shoulders as they each examined the evidence. Luna threw her arms around me, whooping as loud as I had. "You still look like a pillock in that catsuit, though," she added.  
  
"This is NOT a catsuit!" I said indignantly. "I'll grant you I look like an anorexic banana when I'm going slower than about fifty, but a catsuit, now a catsuit is something totally different. You don't watch the right kind of telly, you!"  
  
Several years later, a conversation of momentous import took place between the Minister of Magic, The Headmaster of Hogwarts and the longest surviving double agent in the history of the war against the Dark Lord.  
  
"This plan is one of the chanciest we've considered yet," Arthur Weasley remarked.  
  
"But if it goes right-" Snape began. Dumbledore waved him into silence.  
  
"Whether that is the most likely outcome is still a matter for grave doubt, Severus," he said firmly. "I will not consider allowing you to undertake this mission until and unless you can prove, to my satisfaction, that there is at least an even chance of success."  
  
"I can promise that, at least," Snape concluded. "It is far from certain that I will come back alive, but to my mind that is a secondary consideration."  
  
"It pains me to say this, Severus, but you are right. There is too much at stake, and I would go myself if it were possible." Snape nodded. Dumbledore was a leader, a symbol, but he himself was expendable.  
  
"Are you thinking of taking any weapon beside your wand?" Arthur enquired thoughtfully. "After all, the Dark Lord will be protecting himself against all forms of MAGICAL attack." He opened his briefcase, and produced a heavy-calibre revolver, which he handed it to Snape. "I think this calls for some lateral thinking, don't you?"  
  
"Weasley, you're a genius!" Snape exclaimed. //Merlin, did I REALLY just say that?//  
  
"Has Flitwick completed the trials?" Dumbledore enquired.  
  
"He still has to perfect the process; Floo Powder and Time Turners strange bedfellows make. However," Snape said with a slow smile, "I have chosen a suitable ambush point." //If anybody is going to kill James Potter, I want it to be ME!// he didn't add. He didn't have to.  
  
"What about Harry?" Dumbledore said thoughtfully. "Will he accompany you?"  
  
"No, we'll do this ourselves. We're going to mess up history enough as it is."  
  
"If the proccedure fouls up, and you happen across him, he will insit upon joining you." Dumbledore half-smiled. "He may even be of assistance."  
  
"Hah! Well, anything's possible!" 


	3. Dodge City At 18 Willow Crescent

Author's note: See if you can guess who the subject of the mobile phone conversation towards the end is. The incident with the barbecue is wholly fictional, but the posters aren't, and they rankle!  
  
We were having a quiet cup of tea and discussing possible ways to spend the evening when there was a flash of greenish-blue light and a small thunderclap, followed by a crash and a volley of cursing.  
  
Snape and Flitwick sat up, brushing dust off their clothing. "Well, we know it works!" Flitwick said chirpily. It vaguely occurred to me that he looked and sounded almost exactly how I would have pictured the bastard offspring of Professor Branestawm and his housekeeper, whose surname he shared. Maybe he is.  
  
"Yes, I can see that. But where, and more importantly, when have we ended up?"  
  
"A dragon reserve in Romania, on the eighth of August 2004," I said helpfully. "Um, sir, what were you trying to do?"  
  
"Ultimately," Flitwick said importantly, "we wanted to land in James Potter's front room a short while before you-know-who. Looks like we're getting closer, actually!"  
  
"Yes, only sixteen years short and a couple of hundred miles off course!" Snape held out the revolver. "It is a great shame that you inherited your brains from your mother and not your father, Weasley," he said bitingly. Ah, that firearms interest of Arthur Weasley's. I thought he had the right idea with that.  
  
"Have you compared their exam results lately, Severus?" Flitwick rejoined pointedly.  
  
"It's a good idea, though," I said. "The Dark Lord might have spells on the go to protect him against every form of magic on the planet, but I'll bet he wouldn't think of wearing Kevlar!"  
  
"Surely you aren't thinking of doing this alone, with only one revolver, sir?" said Harry. Surprisingly, Snape looked thoughtful for a moment, and then almost smiled.  
  
"I shall happily accept volunteers, if only so that there will be that many fewer essays to mark next year."  
  
"Count me in," Harry said firmly. "Seeing as you've been taking what my father did to you at school out on ME since my first year, I'd like a few words with him, as it happens!" He grinned in a mildly alarming way.  
  
"Damned if I'm missing out on this!" I added. There was a rumble of assent from the others.  
  
"Ron, can you get on the blower to Charlie?" I said. "We'll need his Mafia connections."  
  
"What makes you think he's got any?" Ron demanded, anger flaring.  
  
"This is Charlie we're talking about here, Ron," Ginny said with a laugh. "Of course he's going to have Mafia connections!"  
  
"I don't actually," Charlie told us through the fireplace shortly thereafter. "I do know an address where you can get what you need, though..."  
  
Ron hastily wrote it down. "We'd better get the next bus," he said, glancing at his watch.  
  
"Come on then, folks," said Fran, "let's go buy some guns!"  
  
"And whilst we do that," Snape told Flitwick, "YOU try and get us a little closer to our target. We're lucky we didn't end up at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean!"  
  
We made our way to a disused warehouse, and knocked on the door. A little barred hatch opened.  
  
"Da?"  
  
"We've come to do business," Snape explained.  
  
"Buy, or sell?" the man on the other side asked in broken but intelligible English.  
  
"Buy, and buy a lot." The door opened, to reveal an unremarkable-looking man in a cheap suit; the same man I'd been sitting next to on our flight. "Come," he instructed us. We followed him into a large room, solely furnished by a trestle table covered with a cloth. With great dramatic flourish, our new friend whipped the cloth away to reveal an impressive selection of arms, from .38 Specials (a toylike popgun of a revolver; you can THROW it farther than it'll shoot accurately) to AK47s- lots of AK47s, in fact.  
  
"Choose," he said, grinning like the manager of Harrods when the doors open for the January Sales. We took quite a while to comply.  
  
I went Israeli, for some reason; Uzi 9mm submachine gun and .357 Desert Eagle sidearm. The others mostly picked similar SMGs or AKs, with an ecclectic mix of pistols. Hermione and Fran both picked 12-gauge shotguns, barrels sawn short for added punch at close quarters at a cost of shorter range, apparently because: "Everything else just looks so PHALLIC, you know?" I didn't, frankly, but if it kept them happy...  
  
Draco chose TWO Tec-9 machine pistols; you know the one you get if you do the Stage 1 Weapon Cheat on GTA: Vice City? If he could fire them both one handed then the best of luck to him, but I had to use both hands just to LIFT one with a full sized twenty round magazine, and I dreaded to think what the recoil would be like. Snape, with great deliberation, chose a beautifully made and finished bolt-action hunting rifle. He got Flitwick a small Makharow automatic, which was lightweight and easy to handle even though it's short ranged, mostly I think so Flitwick wouldn't feel left out.  
  
Our dealer tapped the place where the magazine should fit in Cho's AK. "How much bullet?"  
  
"Loads. We've got to practice a bit first," Hermione said briskly. She handed over a large bag of pooled Galleons, dollars and local currency. Our new friend looked at a Galleon askance.  
  
"Gold," Snape explained.  
  
"Gold? Da, is good." I wasn't surprised; this was hardly the sort of place that took American Express, was it? Apparently he was impressed enough to throw in a couple of boxes of paper targets.  
  
"I'm glad he took our word for it," Fran remarked as we left, carying our purchases. "If he'd decided those Galleons were fake..."  
  
"He looks like the sort who can tell fakes from about eighty paces," Cho replied. "If they HAD been fake, though, he'd probably have had us kneecapped."  
  
"Poked us in the back of the knees with a shotgun and pulled the trigger," I explained, seeing Snape's blank expression. "A popular variation uses an electric drill instead." On that happy note, we went to spend several hours practicing with our new purchases.  
  
Ron shredded the centre of his target with a five-round burst. "Gotcha!"  
  
I grinned, and followed suit. Stonewalls school Time Crisis champion three years running! "You know, I reckon we're ready," I said to the others. As if to prove me right, a hole appeared in a nearby target, right over the tiny little X in the centre. Several hundred yards away, Snape emerged from beneath Harry's invisibility cloak; the best ghillie suit I'd ever seen.  
  
Flitwick finished making adjustments, and called us over. "It ought to work this time," he told us, "but I can't promise our arrival being accurate to within less than about a square mile."  
  
"Just so long as we don't come out a hundred feet in the air," I replied. "How does this work, then?"  
  
"You just stand in the circle I've marked, and let me handle the rest. Give me another few moments to set up..."  
  
Snape obligingly took the photograph of all of us in our Weasley sweaters, holding a variety of firearms and grinning wildly. Our parents were going to just LOVE that!  
  
We stood in a circle, which seemed to be sprinkled with Floo Powder mixed with something else. He said a few spells, waved his wand, and threw a Time Turner into the air. It hovered there, spinning, and began to emit vivid blue light. Suddenly there was a BANG that knocked me off my feet, a brief sensation of being in about eight hundred places at once, and then...  
  
Thump! I hit the ground hard, and got up painfully. //Okay, I'm in a field on the edge of... Ah, hell, I wouldn't know Great Houghton from Brigadoon!// I ducked through a gap in a hedge, and wandered through several anonymous side streets. I posessed my wand, Uzi and Desert Eagle plus ammunition for both, £3.47 and two Galleons and the clothes I stood up in. I was lost, half my money was dated after 1986, and I wasn't even too sure which part of the country I was in.  
  
//What a way to spend my summer holidays!// I supposed I needn't worry too much about money; you'd be amazed at the discounts you're entitled to when you posess a fully automatic weapon.  
  
"Rick!" somebody hissed. "Over here!" I turned, and saw Hermione crouching behind a car. I ducked down beside her.  
  
"That house opposite us," she whispered. I just saw Harry's father." I looked carefully, and saw the man she was referring to at the window. The resemblance was striking, though the bag of frozen peas over one eye detracted from it somewhat.  
  
"Looks like Snape got there before us," I laughed.  
  
"Yep."  
  
We cautiously moved in, one of us moving forward to the next bit of cover whilst the other kept a lookout, a method of advance known as protective overwatch; it's amazing how much you can learn about infantry tactics from SOCOM: US Navy SEALs on PC. We rang the doorbell, which played a tune which sounded suspiciously like the theme from Smokey and the Bandit, and were confronted with Harry's mother.  
  
Lily Potter was confronted with two teenagers carrying guns, but magnificently failed to scream or call the police.  
  
"Oh, you must be with Severus," she said pleasantly. "Come in."  
  
"But why in hell did they get PETUNIA of all people?" a voice demanded. "Why not Sirius?"  
  
"Everybody thought it was him who betrayed you to Voldemort," Harry explained patiently. "It was actually Peter Pettigrew."  
  
"I might have known," James Potter growled. "I'll strangle that little rodent!"  
  
"My cat already tried," Hermione said, putting her shotgun down. "He spent a couple of years being Ron Weasley's pet rat, you see."  
  
"Good, he's found his true vocation!"  
  
None of the others had arrived yet, so we gave them a quick breakdown of who was who.  
  
"Blimey, I know Arthur fancied Molly for ages before they started going out, but SEVEN kids?" Lily shook her head.  
  
"Not much to do round their house of an evening, I suppose," Harry replied. This was Molly's standard joke in the event of anybody commenting.  
  
"Yeah, right. He'd spent about ten years trying to get off with her!" Lily said with a girlish giggle. "He'd got a hell of a lot of lost time to make up!"  
  
Eventually, the others turned up, and we worked out some sort of plan. It wasn't particularly complicated, and basically involved everybody hiding near windows until Voldemort turned up and then letting him have it. Flitwick was banished to the attic, and told to set up a return time portal so that if all else failed we could just leg it.  
  
***  
  
With a crack, Voldemort apparated in front of the house. He paused, listening for sounds no normal human ear could detect. Where were they? Expecting the likes of Pettigrew to come up with useful information had been stretching credibility a bit. Hah, intelligence from Peter Pettigrew? Bit of a contradiction in terms, really.  
  
There was an oiled snick as Snape drew back the bolt of his rifle, beneath the cloak and perched precariously on the roof. Voldemort looked up, and dived sideways as Snape fired.  
  
"Well, well, well," he chuckled evilly. "I am almost impressed."  
  
"You ain't seen nothing yet!" I yelled, popping up and taking aim. "Have some of THIS, you bastard!" Voldemort dodged at lightning speed, like Agent Smith in the Matrix (his people skills are about the same, too) as we let fly with everything we had. James and Lily contributed to the fight with a combination of some empty milk bottles, the handkerchiefs Petunia had sent her for Christmas and a large quantity of barbecue lighting fluid. Who says the Cruciacus is the nastiest way to die in the world?  
  
"Right, then!" Voldemort called up about thirty Death Eaters, who began slinging Adava Kedavaras at the house.  
  
"Suppressing fire!" Harry yelled to the others. We lay down a barrage of shots, forcing those who weren't hit to duck or run for their lives. They clustered behind nearby cars, leaving them vulnerable to a well thrown Molotov.  
  
"Rush them, you idiots!" Voldemort yelled, blowing the front door down.  
  
"Shit," I said to myself. "Fall back up the stairs, quickly!" Luna and I sprayed covering fire past the remains of the door as the others retreated, then ducked up there ourselves.  
  
Cho vaulted the bannisters one-handed, Kalashnikov in her free hand, and booted the first Death Eater through the door out of it again. He didn't get back up; we later found out that she'd snapped his neck with a single kick to the face. James followed her, swinging an aluminium softball bat he'd used to play Beater in Quidditch. Harry and I weren't too far behind.  
  
Harry isn't a big guy by any definition, but he's lightning fast, and blocked every punch or hex sent his way. Kickboxing hadn't visibly improved his muscle definition, but he broke one Death Eater's nose with the edge of his hand, then floored another with a roundhouse kick. This was turning into a melee, with no room for wand or gun. I dodged a wild swing from a Death Eater and climbed back up the stairs towards my Uzi. Cho followed, switching her AK to single fire as she went. She picked off the nearest Death Eater, and the rest began to retreat.  
  
"If the People's Liberation Army ever need a face for their recruitment ads, don't settle for less than half a million," I told her. For some reason this seemed hysterically funny right then.  
  
I leant out of an upper window, and with the others sprayed the last of my Uzi's 9mm rounds towards the surviving Death Eaters, then drew my pistol. Luna and I exchanged relieved grins; neither of us was dead yet.  
  
"Very well," we heard Voldemort snarl. "I shall have to deal with you all myself." He pointed his wand at himself. "Multipla!" About a dozen Voldemorts appeared at on either side of the original, who broke out in maniacal laughter; definitely a Matrix fan. Snape sighed and shook his head, and put a round clean through a Voldemort's mouth, spraying blood and brain over the tarmac.  
  
"That shut HIM up," Lily remarked, lighting the last Molotov. I took a shot, the Desert Eagle bucking like a rocket launcher as it hurled an eyeball-sized hollowpoint round through a Voldemort's chest cavity, which basically exploded.  
  
The Voldemorts raised their wands in unison, but found themselves facing a dozen handguns, a sniper rifle and a petrol bomb. It was a short fight, but a brutally and messily efficient one. One Adava Kedavara hit the house, wrecking the brickwork, but that was about it.  
  
A squad of very surprised Aurors turned up just as we began cheering and exchanging high fives. "Merlin! What the hell happened?" one of them exclaimed.  
  
"Lateral thinking, time travel and lots and lots of guns, that's what happened," James replied cryptically, hauling a still-living Death Eater to his feet. "Well, well, Peter. Fancy meeting you here!" Wormtail was firmly bundled away, several wands against his head. Other Aurors began aplying memory charms to the neighbours, as well as clearing up the worst of the richochet marks and the blood left by the bodies, which were removed discretely.  
  
"Come on," Snape told us. "We'd best get back to our own time before they start asking questions."  
  
"And once we've done that," Lavender said firmly, "we are going to the pub!"  
  
We landed in our own time, and spent the rest of our holiday in a normal fashion. We returned home by Floo Powder, so as to avoid unpleasantness with HM Customs and Excise about the machine guns.  
  
"I think I prefer easyJet," I grumbled, brushing soot off my trousers. Everybody's parents, Harry's included, were waiting.  
  
"Snape told us what he was planning," Molly explained. "Dumbledore has gone MAD!"  
  
"I might have guessed he didn't authorise recruiting us," I laughed. "Can you let him know that we're back, entirely unwounded and well pleased with ourselves? Might calm him down some."  
  
"I wouldn't bet on that," Dumbledore replied severely, striding into the room.  
  
"Don't knock it, Albus," Arthur replied. "They did it, didn't they? Voldemort's dead, Lily and James are back, and the war's as good as over."  
  
"And if you even contemplate giving Snape the sack..." James warned.  
  
"I wasn't," Dumbledore replied. "What could I achieve? This whole lunatic venture is something of a fait accompli. No doubt you will be selling the story to the Daily Prophet within the next few hours," he added sourly.  
  
"I was thinking of the Quibbler, actually," Harry replied, mindful of the Heckler & Koch USP handgun Luna still had in her pocket. Dumbledore had a better view of what happened than me. He waged an internal struggle for a moment, then gave in and began to laugh. I heard a click as Luna put the safety catch back on her sidearm.  
  
"Crikey," I said to myself.  
  
"It wasn't loaded," she hissed back. "Do you think I'm crazy?"  
  
"From time to time."  
  
We assembled on Platform 9.75 (can't remember how to get a three quarters symbol from Special Characters), and waited for the train. Draco earned amazed stares from his fellow Slytherins when he stood around next to Harry and Co, with no apparent emnity between them. Harry's younger sister Elisabeth, invariably known as Sally for obvious reasons, was cheerfully engaged in yakking into her mobile phone to her friend Amber.  
  
"Look, I know he's got worse hair than my brother and he's about as sexy as Patrick Moore, but why dump him? I said PATRICK Moore! Look, if he's prepared to put up with all those damn great posters of Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood on your bedroom wall he's worth hanging on to, surely! Well, I agree with him on that. Of course Gordon Tracy's gay, just because you've got a thing for HIM, too... I bet he says that as well!" (Amber39 will now have guessed PRECISELY who she is referring to!)  
  
Harry and I exchanged looks. The boy in question, a deeply nerdy aspiring writer with a passion for steam trains and retro shirts, had first come to Harry's attention whilst attending a family barbecue. He'd accidentally set fire to the fence separating the McCulloch family's garden from the Potter family's whilst attempting to get it lit, something I personally wouldn't have let him do, though fortunately everybody had seen the funny side.   
  
Pansy Parkinson wandered past, with some rather Neanderthal-looking Slytherin on her arm. "Well, well," she sneered at Draco. "Gone down-market, haven't we?"  
  
"Sod off, you pug-nosed tart!" Draco replied, to spontaneous applause from most of our year.  
  
"You know something, Draco?" Ginny remarked as Pansy stormed off in a sulk. "You might want to think about asking to switch Houses."  
  
"He's already an honourary Ravenclaw!" Luna pointed out. Fran chucked a Polo mint at her head. Ron sighed, and endeavoured to separate them, aided by Hermione.  
  
//I love this lot,// I told myself. I'm astonished to say that I meant it.  
  
Draco successfully transferred to Ravenclaw, and became the nice guy Lucius had tried to submerge beneath a layer of sarcasm, eugenics and general gittishness- is that a word? He was also responsible for the design of several t-shirts bearing the logo of what we call the Order of the Basilisk. It was the only heraldic creature we could think of that covered everybody's House. Mercifully, Flitwick -a Hufflepuff- declined membership, largely because there was no way we'd find an animal to represent all four Houses. Snape also declined to join.  
  
Remus returned as DADA teacher (Snape had finally got sick of marking essays for two subjects), with his new American wife Amanda teaching Muggle Studies; I really, REALLY wish they'd called it something else, but oh well. Snape had apparently paid a visit to New York and been very rude about Remus, lycanthropy in general, and Americans. Amanda took great offence at this, though I wish the record to state that she has nothing whatsoever to do with the sachets of shampoo marked 'Use Me' that keep being pushed under his door. That's Sally, 'keeping up a family tradition', though if her father heard her say that he'd do a Molly Weasley.  
  
Our families have forgiven everything except the drunken antics captured on tape, though if you listen to Tonks they were nothing to what my parents got up to at that age. I can neither confirm nor deny this.  
  
There was a happy ending to the matter discussed by Sally and her friend by phone on Platform 9 3/4 (found it!), and the two of them are firmly back together. The current consensus is that he is Luna's male equivalent, though that's decidedly unflattering to Luna in my opinion. And he really, REALLY needs to get a haircut; he looks like the lead singer of A-Ha, as well as having the dress sense and social skills of Spud from Trainspotting. (Author- if you hadn't worked it out, it's me.)  
  
The guns are kept under lock and key at Grimmauld Place, which Sirius has done up a treat. Owing to our buggering about with the space-time continuum he didn't die, and even succeeded in getting off with Madame Hooch. Just don't ask, okay?  
  
I suspect we'll be needing the guns some day; the Dark Lord can't possibly be the last evil murdering bastard the magical word will ever see.  
  
#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#  
  
In the next exciting installment...  
  
Draco Malfoy, Lieutenant of Aurors First Class, read the report that had been handed to him in silence. //So, some bugger think's he can be the next Voldemort, hmmm?//  
  
"Sergeant, ask Major Black if I can have a word with him at some stage. This needs nipping in the bud as soon as humanly possible, or it could get nasty."  
  
"Sir!" The NCO saluted and exited. Draco glanced at the photograph on his desk, which showed twelve teenagers in Weasley sweaters holding a variety of guns. He had his arm around Ginny, and was giving a thumbs-up to the camera. It had been taken by Professor Snape, just before they went back in time to save Harry's parents and kill the Dark Lord.  
  
Draco opened the drawer of his desk, and produced a pair of machine pistols. He began to clean one of them; he'd be needing them before the week was out, probably.  
  
Major Sirius Black entered the office without knocking, as was his perogative as a senior officer. Draco shot to his feet and saluted. Sirius returned the salute with a terse, "As you were."  
  
"You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?"  
  
"I did, sir. This individual calling himself 'The Heir of Voldemort' needs to be dealt with, and soon. He could become the figurehead of a rejuvenated Dark Army if left alone." Black started.  
  
"Where did you hear of this?" he demanded. "All word of that individual is classified!"  
  
"The report was put on my desk, sir," Draco replied. "I assume it was supplied to me in error, and there was nothing to indicate it was a Top Secret document. I recieved it in good faith, sir, and I had no intent to violate regulations."  
  
"Never mind," Black replied. "I was planning on getting you in to set up a team to eliminate this individual anyway."  
  
Draco's eye strayed to the photograph. "I think I might have a team already set up, sir," he said thoughtfully.  
  
Who is the Heir of Voldemort? Will he learn from his predecessor's mistakes and wear Kevlar? The Order of the Basilisk will just have to find out. Can Draco get all the old gang back together? Are they going to leave behind their homes and families and risk life and limb once more? Some of them have kids, after all.  
  
Will Rick ever look good in Lycra? Of course not!  
  
NB: The author would like to offer his sincerest apologies to his girlfriend for the unnecessary crack about her favourite Tracy brother, and would really appreciate it if she would put down that axe.  
  
But I still reckon he's...  
  
Further text was obscured by spatters of blood, and was irrecoverable. 


End file.
